“Where to next” with my painting

I have spent this entire week pondering the query of “where to next” with my painting, and have traversed a circular path more than thrice now. Perhaps by putting it in writing, in contrast to the loop inside my own skull, there will be further illumination than now.

I have been watching not only myself, but other artists. They start painting realistically, then move to a looser, more freedom based strokes realism, then this morphs into a series of shapes or smears of colour upon a plane that still clings to a realism basis, then next perhaps to a stage of painting pieces that are trying albeit desperately not to be paintings. Or the work gets caught ‘in between’ any of these stages of growth, for reasons as varied as the Canadian sunsets. Some painters group together, searching for identity and infamy in a secure unit, but ultimately sacrifice their own voice to that of a unified look or style.

If we look at painting in history, without the benefit of an art degree in a dusty museum basement or cash endowed callousness of an art critic, we see realism, different ways of painting realism whether it be smudges or points of paint, abstract forms, then no forms whatsoever, then painting as if a child once more. History has tried everything from brushing the paint on, throwing it on, dropping it on, and even just not using much paint, or no paint. From there artists seem to have moved into installation work, ever looking for that ‘something new’ thing, using new materials, new tools and new technology to achieve the same output with ever better results.

This then would be the basis for the long heard argument that painting is dead. It is a dead technology, and an antique practise. Many persons aren’t even sure why it’s still being done at all, and in fact although the practise is enjoying a bit of resurgence in my generation and the one following it, this does not mean it will continue forward into future history. This is not mine to say.

My lament has no obvious response from this void; I am on the edge of the same precipice as many artists, wondering “what now?” What should I paint now? Is this any good? Why bother at all? Will anyone ever care?

I finger-painted again this afternoon, and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Does that make it art? I don’t know. When Picasso said that he spent years learning to paint as a child again, does that mean it is something that anyone should aspire too? Really? The other side of this coin is the simple knowledge that as human beings we all need to grow up at some point, and not be burden on society, but a functioning adult that works to move his community forward into the future. Survival of the species will not happen by clinging to childhood. Why thereon overtly celebrate the decline back to childhood?

I’m just arguing the other side of an obvious coin, not making grandiose assumptions or judgements. Neither of these contexts is here.

I saw painted canvases in the Picasso exhibition at the AGO that were 100 years old; and that is inspiring to me. Someone thought them important enough to keep all this time. And really, they are in pretty good shape. Perhaps a few of mine will out survive me too.

Which then leads me along the train of thought that perhaps it does not matter most what I paint, but is the fact that I do paint a point in and of itself. I am living at a very exciting juncture in history; the turn of the 21^st century. Truth be known, our generation and both the one before and the one after spend an inordinate amount of time looking backwards to the turn of the previous century with fascination. However most persons don’t seem to realize that we are those people; we are living through the same relevant window in time just without and beyond that frame of reference. What we produce now, what we learn now, what we achieve now, all will be looked back on by future generations in fascination.

So what are we doing that is fascinating? What is painting doing that is fascinating?

Is it just as simple as leaving behind images of our lives, as we lived them? Is that the realm of importance that painting should reside in? Where then is photography in this making of history? Installation? Technology?  How do we make art a significant contributor to our culture? If our culture declines into oblivion, and all future technology is unable to run or power antique forms of artwork produced in the “height of the then technological age”, does it then leave it to chance that paintings would be one of the only forms of artwork left to be viewed as it was created, as it was intended?

Perhaps it is what we say with paintings? That cannot be said with any other medium? Like what? Why? Or is it that there is almost nothing left that requires that people actually use their hands – and not a computerized tool, for example – that drives a select group of people to grab a brush instead to create? Why a static image, when the world is in love with a moving image? When the posters on the street talk back at you, why would anyone choose a silent one that doesn’t move? Why would one create such an object? And then why could it be memorable to a historian of the future, looking backwards in said fascination?